Laotian products to secure local market share
Laos will seek ways to promote and protect the sale of local products to ensure they will secure a market share in the SME sector after the inception of the Asean Economic Community.
Laohoua Cheuching, a senior government official at the Foreign Trade Policy Department, said many people now worried that Laotian products would be in trouble when the AEC is officially launched at the end of this year because of the free flow of regional products.
"Currently we can already see many foreign products on sale in Laos, which is not strange at all.
"At the same time, our agricultural products such as coffee and tea are already well recognised by domestic and international buyers," he said.
Laohoua attended the 47th Meeting of the Asean Economic Ministers (AEM) held in Malaysia from August 22-25.
To protect local small and medium-sized enterprises, Laos bans some agricultural products from other Asean countries.
This restriction will continue with the inception of the AEC but agricultural imports will be allowed at an appropriate time in the future, Laohoua said.
He said that the majority of local agricultural as well as brewery production would be preserved for local businesses unless the imported products are properly proved to have sanitary and phyto-sanitary (SPS) and country-of-origin (CO) certification.
When the AEC comes into force at the end of this year, many developing Asean countries will be ready to set zero tariffs for imported products.
"The majority of Asean countries have already implemented the measures to reduce tariff barriers," Laohoua said.
"Meanwhile Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam will be ready in 2018 with a total of more than 600 product items having their tariffs removed."
At the same time, the more than 600 lines of protected products in Laos are mainly agricultural commodities.
